Mango expands investment umbrella to fund alternative ridesharing start-up

Spanish retail giant Mango is growing its portfolio of investments to now fund Hoop Carpool, a start-up offering companies a mobility alternative allowing employees and students to share short-distance journeys.

Made through the company’s Mango StartUp Studio accelerator, the investment comes in the form of a convertible equity loan, which will be paired with mentorship and advice from the retailer’s team in order to help the start-up scale up its own business.

The agreement will also see Mango carry out a six-month trial of the Hoop Carpool’s offering for employees at its headquarters. The platform itself allows drivers and passengers sharing similar routes to opt into a carpooling solution in a bid to reduce transport emissions and relieve road traffic congestion.

Since its founding in 2019, the Madrid-based start-up said that it has facilitated over 100,000 ridesharing trips, saving more than 360,000 kilograms of carbon emissions.

For Mango, this marks the seventh investment made through its start-up accelerator since the initial launch in 2022, with the group having already funded the likes of architecture 3D printing firm Ziknes and market analytics and business data monitoring company Flipflow.